Existence and Consolation

Existence and Consolation
Author: Ada Agada
Publisher: Paragon House
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015-03-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9781557789143

This groundbreaking book in African philosophy goes beyond the post-colonial enthno-philosophies and describes a genuine philosophy grounded in the African experience that illuminates the universal quest for happiness, meaning, and knowledge. Consolation philosophy is meant as the culmination of loose developments in African thought that stretch back to ancient Egypt, and which are found particularly in the thought of Senghor and the work of the contemporary Nigerian philosopher Asouzu (who is taken as offering a prolegomena to any future African philosophy).

The Consolations of Philosophy

The Consolations of Philosophy
Author: Alain De Botton
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2013-01-23
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 030783350X

From the author of How Proust Can Change Your Life, a delightful, truly consoling work that proves that philosophy can be a supreme source of help for our most painful everyday problems. Perhaps only Alain de Botton could uncover practical wisdom in the writings of some of the greatest thinkers of all time. But uncover he does, and the result is an unexpected book of both solace and humor. Dividing his work into six sections -- each highlighting a different psychic ailment and the appropriate philosopher -- de Botton offers consolation for unpopularity from Socrates, for not having enough money from Epicurus, for frustration from Seneca, for inadequacy from Montaigne, and for a broken heart from Schopenhauer (the darkest of thinkers and yet, paradoxically, the most cheering). Consolation for envy -- and, of course, the final word on consolation -- comes from Nietzsche: "Not everything which makes us feel better is good for us." This wonderfully engaging book will, however, make us feel better in a good way, with equal measures of wit and wisdom.

Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy as a Product of Late Antiquity

Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy as a Product of Late Antiquity
Author: Antonio Donato
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2013-09-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1472502221

In the last fifty years the field of Late Antiquity has advanced significantly. Today we have a picture of this period that is more precise and accurate than before. However, the study of one of the most significant texts of this age, Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, has not benefited enough from these advances in scholarship. Antonio Donato aims to fill this gap by investigating how the study of the Consolation can profit from the knowledge of Boethius' cultural, political and social background that is available today. The book focuses on three topics: Boethius' social/political background, his notion of philosophy and its sources, and his understanding of the relation between Christianity and classical culture. These topics deal with issues that are of crucial importance for the exegesis of the Consolation. The study of Boethius' social/political background allows us to gain a better understanding of the identity of the character Boethius and to recognize his role in the Consolation. Examination of the possible sources of Boethius' notion of philosophy and of their influence on the Consolation offers valuable instruments to evaluate the role of the text's philosophical discussions and their relation to its literary features. Finally, the long-standing problem of the lack of overt Christian elements in the Consolation can be enlightened by considering how Boethius relies on a peculiar understanding of philosophy's goal and its relation to Christianity that was common among some of his predecessors and contemporaries.

A Universe from Nothing

A Universe from Nothing
Author: Lawrence Maxwell Krauss
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2013
Genre: Science
ISBN: 145162445X

This is a provocative account of the astounding new answers to the most basic philosophical question: Where did the universe come from and how will it end?

The Consolation of Philosophy

The Consolation of Philosophy
Author: Boethius
Publisher: Elliot Stock
Total Pages: 292
Release: 1897
Genre: Happiness
ISBN:

'Why else does slippery Fortune change So much, and punishment more fit For crime oppress the innocent?' Written in prison before his brutal execution in AD 524, Boethius's The Consolation of Philosophy is a conversation between the ailing prisoner and his 'nurse' Philosophy, whose instruction restores him to health and brings him to enlightenment. Boethius was an eminent public figure who had risen to great political heights in the court of King Theodoric when he was implicated in conspiracy and condemned to death. Although a Christian, it was to the pagan Greek philosophers that he turned for inspiration following his abrupt fall from grace. With great clarity of thought and philosophical brilliance, Boethius adopted the classical model of the dialogue to debate the vagaries of Fortune, and to explore the nature of happiness, good and evil, fate and free will. This edition includes an introduction discussing Boethius's life and writings, a bibliography, glossary and notes.

The Consolations of Mortality

The Consolations of Mortality
Author: Andrew Stark
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2016-08-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0300224702

For those who don’t believe in an afterlife, the wisdom of the ages offers four great consolations for mortality: that death is benign and good; that mortal life provides its own kind of immortality; that true immortality would be awful; and that we experience the kinds of losses in life that we will eventually face in death. Can any of these consolations honestly reconcile us to our inevitable demise? In this timely book, Andrew Stark tests the psychological truth of these consolations and searches our collective literary, philosophical, and cultural traditions for answers to the question of how we, in the twenty-first century, might accept our mortal condition. Ranging from Epicurus and Heidegger to bucket lists, the flaming out of rock stars, and the retiring of sports jerseys, Stark’s poignant and learned exploration shows how these consolations, taken together, reveal death as a blessing no matter how much we may love life.

Animals in Our Midst: The Challenges of Co-existing with Animals in the Anthropocene

Animals in Our Midst: The Challenges of Co-existing with Animals in the Anthropocene
Author: Bernice Bovenkerk
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 574
Release: 2021-04-29
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 3030635236

This Open Access book brings together authoritative voices in animal and environmental ethics, who address the many different facets of changing human-animal relationships in the Anthropocene. As we are living in complex times, the issue of how to establish meaningful relationships with other animals under Anthropocene conditions needs to be approached from a multitude of angles. This book offers the reader insight into the different discussions that exist around the topics of how we should understand animal agency, how we could take animal agency seriously in farms, urban areas and the wild, and what technologies are appropriate and morally desirable to use regarding animals. This book is of interest to both animal studies scholars and environmental ethics scholars, as well as to practitioners working with animals, such as wildlife managers, zookeepers, and conservation biologists.

Consolationism and Comparative African Philosophy

Consolationism and Comparative African Philosophy
Author: Ada Agada
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2021-11-18
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1000476553

In a major challenge to African philosophy, this book demonstrates the importance of the universalisation question for every committed African philosopher. Rooted in Africa’s colonial legacy, the universalisation question challenges the African thinker to show how authentically African philosophical concepts and phenomena can be universally applicable in a globalising world. In this highly original book, the author inserts the philosophy of consolationism into African philosophical discourse, constructing a unique philosophical system that is at once African and universally relevant. The book engages major African and Western philosophers of diverse ideological leanings in a compelling dialogue that announces the future of world philosophy as one of interculturality, in which a common philosophical horizon is forged out of the cultural diversities of the world for the edification of humanity in a continually changing world. This book will be an important read for researchers in the fields of African Studies, intercultural philosophy, philosophy of mind, and existentialism.

Here

Here
Author: Wisława Szymborska
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 101
Release: 2010
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 054736461X

A collection of more than twenty-five poems by Nobel Prize-winnning author Wisława Szymborska, including the title selection in which she examines life on Earth.

On Consolation

On Consolation
Author: Michael Ignatieff
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Total Pages: 186
Release: 2021-11-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1250810086

Timely and profound philosophical meditations on how great figures in history, literature, music, and art searched for solace while facing tragedies and crises, from the internationally renowned historian of ideas and Booker Prize finalist Michael Ignatieff When we lose someone we love, when we suffer loss or defeat, when catastrophe strikes—war, famine, pandemic—we go in search of consolation. Once the province of priests and philosophers, the language of consolation has largely vanished from our modern vocabulary, and the places where it was offered, houses of religion, are often empty. Rejecting the solace of ancient religious texts, humanity since the sixteenth century has increasingly placed its faith in science, ideology, and the therapeutic. How do we console each other and ourselves in an age of unbelief? In a series of lapidary meditations on writers, artists, musicians, and their works—from the books of Job and Psalms to Albert Camus, Anna Akhmatova, and Primo Levi—esteemed writer and historian Michael Ignatieff shows how men and women in extremity have looked to each other across time to recover hope and resilience. Recreating the moments when great figures found the courage to confront their fate and the determination to continue unafraid, On Consolation takes those stories into the present, movingly contending that we can revive these traditions of consolation to meet the anguish and uncertainties of our precarious twenty-first century.